agreeable the free life of the herdsman or owner of stock, who flitted over the endless green meadows, clad in fringed buckskin, with Spanish spurs jingling on his heels, and a crimson silk scarf tied about the waist, 58 that to aspiring lads the life of a vaquero of fered attractions superior to those of soil-stirring.
He who would a wooing go, if unable to return the same day, carried his blankets, and at night threw himself upon the floor and slept till morning, when he might breakfast before leave-taking.
If there were none of the usual means of travel, neither were there mail facilities till 1848. Letters were carried by private persons, who received pay or not according to circumstances. The legislature of 1845 in December enacted a law establishing a gen eral post-office at Oregon City, with W. Gr. T Vault 59 as postmaster-general, but the funds of the provisional government w r ere too scanty and the settlements too scattered to make it possible to carry out the inten tion of the act. 60
58 If we may believe some of these same youths, no longer young, they were not always so gayly apparelled and mounted. Says one: We rode with a rawhide saddle, bridle, and lasso. The bit was Spanish, the stirrups wooden, the sinch horse-hair, and over all these, rider and all, was a blanket with a hole in it through which the head of the rider protruded. Quite a suitable costume for rainy weather. McMinnville Reporter, Jan. 4, 1877.
59 W. G. T Vault was born in Arkansas, whence he removed to Illinois in 184.3, and to Oregon in 1844. He was a lawyer, energetic and adventurous, foremost in many exploring expeditions, and also a strong partisan with southern-democracy proclivities. He possessed literary abilities and had something to do with early newspapers, first with the Spectator, as president of the Oregon printing association, and as its first editor; afterward as editor of the Table Rock Sentinel, the first newspaper in southern Oregon ; and later of The Intellif/encer. He was elected to the legislature in 1846. After the establishment of the territory he was again elected to the legislature, being speaker of the house in 1858. He was twice prosecuting attorney of the 1st judicial district, comprising Jackson County, to which he had removed after the discovery of gold in Rogue River Valley, and held other public positions. When the mining excitement was at its height in Idaho, he was practising his profession and editing the Index in Silver City. Toward the close of his life, he deteriorated through the influence of his political associations, and lost caste among his fellow-pioneers. He died of small-pox at Jacksonville in 1869. Daily Salem Unionist, Feb. 1869; Deady s Scrap-look, 122; Jacksonville, Or., Sentinel, Feb. 6, 1869; Dallas Polk Co. Signal, Feb. 16, 1869.
450 By the post-office act, postage on letters of a single sheet conveyed for a distance not exceeding 30 miles was fixed at 15 cents; over and not exceeding 80 miles, 25 cents; over and not exceeding 200 miles, 30 cents; 200 miles, 50 cents. Newspapers, each 4 cents. The postmaster-general was to receive 10